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Wannabe rebels keep "the lost cause" alive even 150+ years after the brief 4 year existence of the Confederacy came to a brutal end.
Their deification of Lee is a central part of their delusion.
As stated clearly in the OP, he was no saint.
A decent and effective general in most respects, but by no means the military genius he's so often cracked up to be.
Let's just consider a few things...
For most of the war, he was fighting on his home ground of Virginia, with a sympathetic civilian population aiding his efforts and hostile to his opponents. And in most of those engagements in Virginia, he was fighting a defensive battle and the weapons and tactics of that time heavily favored the defense.
In the only two instances where he took the offensive and ventured out of Virginia, he was decisively defeated at Antietam and Gettysburg.
I won't bother to get into how Grant spanked him all the way back to Richmond and ultimate defeat.
Wannabe rebels keep "the lost cause" alive even 150+ years after the brief 4 year existence of the Confederacy came to a brutal end.
Their deification of Lee is a central part of their delusion.
As stated clearly in the OP, he was no saint.
A decent and effective general in most respects, but by no means the military genius he's so often cracked up to be.
Let's just consider a few things...
For most of the war, he was fighting on his home ground of Virginia, with a sympathetic civilian population aiding his efforts and hostile to his opponents. And in most of those engagements in Virginia, he was fighting a defensive battle and the weapons and tactics of that time heavily favored the defense.
In the only two instances where he took the offensive and ventured out of Virginia, he was decisively defeated at Antietam and Gettysburg.
I won't bother to get into how Grant spanked him all the way back to Richmond and ultimate defeat.
I’ll give you Gettysburg, but calling Antietam a “decisive victory” is laughable. It stopped his invasion of the North...but the actual battle was a stalemate.
I’ll give you Gettysburg, but calling Antietam a “decisive victory” is laughable. It stopped his invasion of the North...but the actual battle was a stalemate.
Stopping Lee and causing him to retreat was a victory.
Stopping Lee and causing him to retreat was a victory.
Correct, but I wouldn’t call it “Decisively Defeated”. Pope was decisively defeated at 2nd Manassas. Lee was decisively defeated at Gettysburg. I wouldn’t say the same about Antietam.
Correct, but I wouldn’t call it “Decisively Defeated”. Pope was decisively defeated at 2nd Manassas. Lee was decisively defeated at Gettysburg. I wouldn’t say the same about Antietam.
Correct, but I wouldn’t call it “Decisively Defeated”. Pope was decisively defeated at 2nd Manassas. Lee was decisively defeated at Gettysburg. I wouldn’t say the same about Antietam.
I don’t think either of those fights was any more decisive than Antietam, actually I don’t think any of them were decisive anyway. The campaigns and battles that moved the war along were in the West. I reckon the most decisive fight in the east was Five Forks. Or perhaps the Wilderness but not so much because that battle decided much in and of itself but because in hindsight it was the beginning of the end in the East.
You know, thinking about it, it might be that 2nd Bull Run was a decisive battle for the Dakota because Pope turned out to be an excellent administrator and strategist fighting first the Dakota and then other Indians. The man got a second wind out in the far west, unlike guys like Gibbon and Hancock who were excellent during the rebellion and flops as Indian fighters.
The Declaration of Independence would have leaned more towards the end of slavery but for SC (primarily). It was required that the vote for independence be unanimous and that wouldn't have happened if slavery were abolished. (And the North profited from slavery, too)
He was a traitor to the Republic and should have been hung by the neck till dead.
So who else should have been hanged? Why stop at General Lee, there were many Generals and Politicians that significantly contributed to the civil war.
Let's see there were about 500 confederate soldiers with the rank of Brigadier General and over (I am not sure that includes all the various state militias were basically people simply called themselves general). The CSA has an assembly of senators and congressman of about 140. There were, how many? 12 or 13 confederate states each with it's own governer and political assembly, lets say 50 in each state, that's probably an underestimate.
So we are up to hanging about 1,200? Why don't we include ALL officers, political staff, the land owning gentry that financed the civil war. All the important people. I think we could justify hang some 10 to 20,000 of the sucessionists in the south who dared to commit treason. That's only fair right? All traitors to the republic.
Some would call that victory, some would call that justice....
...some would call it genocide and mass-murder.
Lincoln knew it was time to heal the wounds, to rebuild, to forgive. It was the only way to reunite the country. He was smarter than you, much smarter.
"On the whole, my impression is that mercy bears richer fruits than any other attribute."
-Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln knew it was time to heal the wounds, to rebuild, to forgive. It was the only way to reunite the country. He was smarter than you, much smarter.
"On the whole, my impression is that mercy bears richer fruits than any other attribute."
-Abraham Lincoln
The problem was that the Freedmen were betrayed and subjected to Jim Crow as the price of healing those wounds. No good.
I wouldn’t have hanged anyone but I would’ve given Wilson orders to shoot Davis out of hand upon his capture. I would’ve banned from political office, at any level, all who had taken up arms against the United States or been part of a rebel government at any level. Had recalcitrant rebels remained in arms after the destruction of the main rebel armies I would’ve had them hunted down and destroyed down using Freedmen and southern Unionists as anti insurgency forces. No quarter given.
...Lincoln knew it was time to heal the wounds, to rebuild, to forgive. It was the only way to reunite the country. He was smarter than you, much smarter.
"On the whole, my impression is that mercy bears richer fruits than any other attribute."
-Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln was right about forgiveness healing old wounds, but that's not applicable when new wounds are still being created. How white southerners mistreated their new black citizens for many decades afterwards, made forgiveness and healing difficult or near impossible for Moderator cut: deleted
Last edited by mensaguy; 08-04-2018 at 02:50 PM..
Reason: Keeping politics out of here
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